Madonna Causes Cancer

April 28, 2005

Today's horoscope told me that if I want a life of riches I should stop being a "player hater." Confused by this implication, I decided to do a little soul searching in order to figure out just what player I hated. While the answer may be obvious to those close to me, it took me a while to come up with the one person--or player--that I strongly dislike more than any other: Madonna. It didn't help that just today I read that her husband had cut her cameo appearance completely out of his next film, Revolver. And that despite her best efforts and her obvious pull, her latest documentary has been deemed too poor to merit a showing at Cannes. This all was headed to a "breaking news" post at SoT when I recalled the advice of my horoscope.

Then I remembered a meme that I spotted a few days ago. The instructions were to take some song lyrics and, using Google's Language Tools, translate the lyrics from English to French then to German then back to English. That's when I decided to come to terms with my Madonna loathing. I would take a few of her songs and give them the meme treatment. After all, isn't that the ultimate sign of respect? The results are mixed, with the lyrics for both songs barely recognizable after the translations. Truth (or dare) be known, though, these were barely recognizable as lyrics to begin with:

June 18, 2004

And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.
Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request:
For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage.--Esther 7: 2-4

May 27, 2004

For those of you able to reach this site today: Hello! You may be one of the only ones. I'd planned another in-depth look at the connection between DNA and creativity, linking it to the 31st chromosome, something to do with adenine, but I don't want to spend all of that energy on a post that might be read by two people (as opposed to four). According to Typepad, things could be slow for a few days:

We apologize for the intermittent slow performance of TypePad web sites over the past 2-3 days. We're having some problems with our storage servers, so we're scheduling a hardware upgrade for the early morning of Saturday, May 28, 2004, from 12:00am to 2:00am Pacific time. During that time, TypePad-powered sites and TypePad itself will be down for maintenance. Thanks for your patience!

[Madonna] sat in an electric chair and dances and sang against a backdrop of war images, President Bush and Saddam Hussein. The sound of detonating bombs punctuated the song "American Life."

Onstage, dancers dressed like soldiers did push-ups and calisthenics as helicopters swept in and infernos blazed on the video screens behind them.

And then she sang John Lennon's "Imagine," accompanied by a video of sick and injured children from around the world.

There was religion, too — plenty of it. Madonna's passion for fashion has clearly been usurped by her fetish for Kabbalah, as evidencd by the flashes of untranslated Hebrew text displayed in the background of her performance, which hits New York City's Madison Square Garden on June 16.

In a review in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, critic Robert Hillburn begged Madonna to "bring back the sex. Or at least something with flesh and blood, please."

April 07, 2004

I spent the evening preparing for and attending a long awaited performance by the Decemberists (more on that when I get the chance). In place of the usual in-depth commentary and pithy observations, I present this bit of prose:

As part of the generation that's coming up, you look at Madonna and you don't want to let her down. That's such a motivation for me. I love doing what I do, but when Madonna comes around--like when we were making the video for "Me Against the Music"--it's like, "Everybody get your act together--the godmother is here." [Finger in throat.]

Madonna has done so much [read "too"], and she's been around so long, and the bitch [she said it] still looks good! She's spent years in the public eye, and that can be really hard for anyone to deal with. But she dug deep and started writing from her heart, and that's therapy to keep you going. Madonna has so much light inside her, and she's so much more noticeable than all of the rest of us. She stuck to what she believed in and did what she felt [interesting way to put it], and that was part of her art--to just be herself. -- Britney Spears on Madonna in Rolling Stone's "The Immortals"

March 23, 2004

One promise I had to make to my wife in the early days of blogging was that I would keep my criticism of Madonna to a minimum. In fact, it may have been in our wedding vows. Madonna conjurs up the good parts of her childhood, the happy times of sleepovers and improvised dance routines. I won't say what Madonna means to me (hint: underarm hair); I will keep my oath. It's the secret to a happy marriage, I'm told.